inspiring to be around someone like that .
I think , with writing , you have to start and you have to write a lot . You have to be brave and perform songs and get experience and just get over all of these little things that get in the way of being great . Reading great books on songwriting has been very helpful . There ’ s a book by Jimmy Webb called “ Tunesmith ”, which is amazing . There ’ s a few books by Pat Patterson , who is a teacher at the Berklee School of Music . He wrote books on lyric writing that are amazing .
I think the thing that I ’ ve learned most recently is that a really great song has to be inspired by something that ’ s meaningful . The way I wrote “ Adelaide ” was that I was in Italy on tour , and I just wrote the little melodic lines . I often write the melody of a song before I write the lyric and the hook and that kind of stuff . I came up with all of these melodic things and I really liked the mood and I could tell it had a strong emotional connection to something . I was away , traveling , and missing people . And you can feel that in the mood that the song creates .
The James Taylor record helped me find some music that really inspired me and meant something to me and is brilliant . You need to find music like that and then study it , and then write your own stuff as much as you can . You have to get over all of the little things that get in the way , like nerves . Figure out how to get better at songwriting and try and tap into something that really means something to you . Those are the things that I would encourage someone who is just starting out to think about .
[ CG ] I read that before you went into the studio to track Let Me Introduce You , you rehearsed the band before going into the studio to track . You commented that you wanted to have the vibe of the songs to feel like they ’ d been played by the band over time rather than just inventing the parts in the studio . Explain how working the songs up specifically benefitted this disc - that stuff is golden !
[ Joe ] I was really fortunate to work with great musicians – Keith Carloc on drums and Michael Rhodes on bass . It was a situation where the songs were not very easy . There were a lot of moving parts , and I did write out some bass parts for Michael . With Keith , there were some songs that had more of a fusion influence , so there were lots of parts . It just felt like the right thing to do , to spend a couple of days going through the songs . I had charts for everyone , and we all made notes , and we got some different groove ideas going . Then we went into the studio and cut it all , and it was really fun ! If we had gone into the studio without having the songs fleshed out a bit already , I don ’ t think it would have been as easy to just play and be creative and let the music feel itself out .
But I think there are times where the opposite is true . There are times where it ’ s good to just go in there and have the musicians hear the song and then just play what they hear before really thinking about it . When you ’ re working with really great players , everything they do sounds good , so it ’ s kind of just a matter of getting what you really want from the sessions .
I ’ ll probably do that again . I ’ m getting ready to do another album . I ’ m writing for it right now , and when we decide to go in and get it all done , then I ’ ll probably get with my musicians in advance again before we go into the studio to cut it . I ’ m more comfortable with doing it that way rather than just going into the studio and playing it and then just trying to fix it with Pro Tools . I think that the great albums of the past were made by painstakingly rehearsing the songs , painstakingly getting them down , and then getting “ the take ”. You couldn ’ t go back and punch stuff in easily , so it fueled a need to perform better and to be better prepared . I think that ’ s kind of missing in a lot of music today . continued on page 38
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